Introduction
"Robotech the movie" is one of those films where the story
behind the making of it is much more entertaining than the
movie itself. Unfortunately only one member of the production
staff, Carl Macek, has ever spoken publicly about the film's
production. He has always been vocal about his dislike of the
film and those who were in charge of producing and
distributing it. Up until mid 2006, fans have only heard his
side of the story and no one else's. In July 2006, Tom
Bateman, an events coordinator at Harmony Gold who had seen
the original first draft script of the film and other
production materials, confirmed on the Robotech.com message
boards some of what Maeck has said, but contradicted other
parts of it. Mudding the waters further are stories told by
fans, which through "Chinese Whispers" have been distorted and
have strayed greatly from the truth over the years. In this
section I will present what is known about the production of
the film mostly using interviews and quotes from Carl Macek
from 1986 to 2010. I've tried to make it as accurate and
complete as possible.
Expansion of the Robotech Franchise
During 1985, an
American company named Harmony Gold created an 85 part TV
series named "Robotech" out of three unrelated Japanese
animated TV series; "Macross", "Southern Cross" and
"Mospeada". It was a major success and a number of toy, book
and other merchandise tie-ins also built on that success.
According to Carl Macek, sometime in 1985 a local TV news
reporter interviewed himself and other Harmony Gold staff
while they were working on "Robotech" at dubbing studio
Intersound. The interviews were for a news story on Japanese
animation programming in the US and how it may compete with
locally produced animation. The day after the station aired
the story, Menahem Golan of Cannon Films rang Frank Agrama of
Harmony Gold and suggested that they release a "Robotech"
movie for theatrical distribution (1).
Harmony Gold agreed to the deal and planned to release a
"Robotech" theatrical feature with a timeframe sometime just
before the Christmas 1985 season. Jerry Beck's "The Animated
Movie Guide" book also states that Harmony Gold planned to use
revenue generated from the profits of the film as capital to
fund the follow up Robotech TV series, "Robotech II: The
Sentinels" (2).
Realising that an animated film could not be
created within the allotted timeframe, they looked at existing
anime films that could be used as a basis for the feature.
This is the point where the story gets a little murky. Carl
Macek says that Harmony Gold attempted to acquire the
"Macross" movie, "Macross Do You Remember Love?" (1).
Supposedly Tatsunoko, the Japanese studio that produced all
three series that made up the "Robotech" TV series, had
optioned the film for a US theatrical release, in the hope
that "Robotech" would be a mega hit. They refused Harmony Gold
the rights to the film. Not only could they not acquire the
rights, Tatsunoko put restrictions on the use of any "Macross"
terminology, such as "Super Dimensional Fortress", "Zentradi"
and even "Protoculture" for any planned "Robotech" theatrical
feature. But according to a March 1986 interview with Richard
Firth, director of creative services at Harmony Gold, and
published in the fanzine "Macross Life" in May 1986, Harmony
Gold didn't want to use the "Macross" film because of the cost
of the license and that it "did not have much to do with
what [the company was] doing anymore" and that "it
just did not suit [the company's] purpose" (3).
Eventually Toho International licensed an appalling English
dub of "Macross Do You Remember Love?" to Family Home
Entertainment through Peregrine Films in 1987, who then
proceed to cut nearly 30 minutes from the film for a US video
release.
Pre-production, the First Script and It's
Dubbing
Harmony
Gold eventually bought the rights to "Megazone 23". This was a
stroke of luck, as many of the staff who worked on "Macross"
had created "Megazone 23", and it had a very similar elements
and designs to that of "Macross". Carl Macek, producer and
overseer of the "Robotech" TV series, re-wrote the storyline
to the film. Steve Kramer, one of the key script writers for
"Robotech" was responsible for the screenplay. This early
version of the film was set during the SDF-1's return to Earth
after accidentally warping to Pluto's orbit in the third
episode of "Robotech". The fan versions of this story and
seemingly Macek's version of events supposedly differ greatly
here from the actual screenplay. The story goes that the lead
character was called Mark Landry, who was a relative of Rick
Hunter. But Tom Bateman who has read Steve Kramer's script
claims that it makes no mention that the character is in any
way related to Rick Hunter. And the character's name isn't
even Mark Landry, it's Mark Harris (4)
(also confirmed in internal Harmony Gold material for the film
which was sold on eBay by Carl's wife, Svea from 2013 to
2015).
According to the interview with Richard Firth in "Macross
Life", the script went something like this; The SDF-1 is
making its way back to Earth after accidentally warping into
to Pluto's orbit. A young man named Mark Harris finds out
about Earth government's attempts to cover up the fate of the
SDF-1 and the secrets of Robotechnology, so he decides to make
the information public by using a transformable bike that he
has acquired from a friend. But Mark's friend is killed by the
military for showing him the bike. A group in the military,
headed up by B.D. Edwards, believe that Mark should be stopped
at all costs and that they should be in control of the Earth.
Firth's description of the script seems garbled at times, but
suggests that the three girls (known as Becky, Stacy and Kelly
in the final version of the film) know about the government's
conspiracy and help Mark. He also says that the film
"cut[s] back and forth from what's happening on Earth" (2). I am unsure if this means that they
were planning to cut in footage from "Macross" or "Southern
Cross", or if they were writing the script in such a way that
it would have taken place in space and on Earth without any
need for additional footage. Carl Macek, in a 1990 interview,
told a similar version of the story (5).
According to Macek the film was almost a straight dub of the
original with very few cuts and only cosmetic changes, such as
some of the dialogue and music. Bateman pretty much confirms
Macek's and Firth's stories, and adds that most of the
character's names are different from the finished product.
Bateman's opinion of the script was that it would have made a
"good movie and a fitting entry into the 'Robotech'
universe" (4).
At the time of the
film's production, Harmony Gold was working on another
project, a 65 episode follow up to "Robotech" called "The
Sentinels", which was an original production being animated
for the US market by Japanese studio Tatsunoko. In late 1985,
Macek left the dubbing of "Robotech the movie" to Harmony
Gold's preferred dubbing studio, Intersound, so he could head
off to Japan to check production on "The Sentinels". But upon
returning to the US, Macek was a little horrified at the
results of the dubbing of "Robotech the movie"; "I went
to Japan with [Harmony Gold producer] Ahmed Agrama to set up
the production of The Sentinels and I left the physical
production of the script in the hands of trusted staff
members. I was gone for about a month. I came back during
the Thanksgiving of 1985 to okay the remix of the film to
make it available for a Christmas 1985 release from Cannon,
and I sat there in stunned amazement because what we saw was
a really bad post-production job on this really cool movie.
The end result of this first version was the most excessive
use of 'Robotechism' that you could possibly imagine. Every
grunt, every groan, every wheeze, every eye blink -
[everything] was accompanied by a grunt or a noise, some
noxious sound. The guy that put it together was so convinced
that because this was going to be a gigantic picture on the
big screen, that audiences would feel slighted if every
physical move was not accompanied by a grunt" (5).
Strangely Bateman claims that he can find no evidence that
Steve Kramer's script was ever dubbed (4),
but he certainly wasn't employed by the company during the
time the film was in production. A flood destroyed some of
Harmony Gold's archives in the mid 1990's, so perhaps the
audio and video masters for this version were destroyed. In a
filmed March 1990 panel discussing the fifth anniversary of
"Robotech" with members of the Cartoon/Fantasy Organisation in
Los Angeles (which was also partly transcribed in a
1990 article in Animato! Magazine (5)), Macek discussed the creation
of the original version of the film and claimed he had a copy
of it on VHS. Also a ten minute promo of “Robotech the movie”
(presumably intended as promotional material sent out sometime
before the movie's July 1986 release) did surface on Youtube
which contained a completely different dub, script and footage
to that of the final film. It is highly likely that this promo
was edited from the original version of the film.
Enter Cannon Films
Distribution
of the movie was to be handled by Cannon Films. Now Cannon
Films were pretty notorious in the 1980's for releasing and
distributing, quite frankly, exploitative trash. Some of their
more notable titles include "Death Wish 2", "The Last American
Virgin", the live action "Masters of the Universe" and
"Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo". Carl Macek's vision of the
film didn't gel with what the head of Cannon, Menachem Golan,
wanted; "What I didn't realise was that Harmony Gold
previewed the version of the Robotech movie to the
executives at Cannon Films and they freaked out. They didn't
understand it; they didn't like it. There was too much
talking. So they said, 'Cut this scene out and cut this
scene out; they've got these girls; there's too many girls;
get rid of this; get rid of that. I was told I had 24 hours
to make a new movie. So I said, 'Okay, what do you I want?'
And the Cannon people said, 'We want lots of guns,
lots of shooting, lots of robots.' So I went back and took
the most recent footage from Robotech that was available to
me at the time, which was Southern Cross, and we edited the
Southern Cross footage into Megazone 23 Part 1. Against my
better judgement, I did the unthinkable. But everyone said
it would be great. I said, 'Look fellas, Macross and all
that Robotech stuff was done in 16mm; Megazone 23 is 35mm;
it's going to look crappy when it's blown up. [They said]
'Don't worry, just do it; just do it; just do it'. So I did
it. I edited together a new version of the Robotech movie in
about six hours. I went into a meeting the next day. I
played the film silent, and I acted out all the parts for
about eighty minutes, and when it was over the lights came
on and Menacham Golan said, 'Now that's a Cannon movie'"
(5).
"Megazone 23" has a pretty dark ending, and according to
Macek, he discussed this with Idol Co Ltd who apparently
agreed that the ending would be unsuitable for a theatrical
release (despite the fact the OVA had already had a short
theatrical release in Japan). Macek commissioned a new 10
minute animated ending for the movie, using Harmony Gold's own
script and US drawn storyboards. Somehow the end result was
very good, and the animation was pretty much consistent with
the existing "Megazone 23" footage, though this ending would
make little sense if added to the original OVA. In 2007 at an
event celebrating the 23rd anniversary of "Megazone 23", the
ending was shown to the audience. Afterwards director Ishigoro
Noboru spoke about the ending and claimed that he had no
knowledge of it. This is rather strange considering it had
been released a number of times in Japan where it had been
included as a bonus in the English language dub releases of
"Megazone 23 Part II". The movie programme for that film also
had a two page spread pictorial on the ending. Confusingly in
a 2008 podcast interview with Anime World Order, Ishigoro
Noboru stated that he was aware of the new ending (but unaware
of "Robotech the movie"), but had no involvement in it's
creation. He also stated that AIC had done the animation and
not his studio, Artland, who had created the animation for
"Megazone 23". Opening credits for "Robotech the movie" of
panning shots of the sun and planets were also created by AIC
and a "Star Wars" like text scrawl filling in the back story
was also added to the film.
Though the soundtrack contained a number of new songs, the
background music consisted mostly tracks supposedly intended
for the yet unfinished "Robotech II: The Sentinels" series (if
you take the liner notes for the "Robotech 30th Anniversary
Soundtrack" at face value), with the remaining tracks taken
from previously used "Robotech" TV series background music and
a few pieces culled from the little seen Harmony Gold TV
series "Captain Harlock and the Queen of a Thousand Years".
The creation of sound effects and mixing process was at least
one process of the film Macek liked; "What I enjoyed about
it was I learned how to produce a movie in Dolby Stereo for
theatrical exploitation, and it was done on primitive
machinery that you'll never get a chance to use again. […]
We mixed it at the Walt Disney Studios believe it or not. In
the Disney theatre on the lot. And we had the people who
mixed "From Out of Africa" as our mixing team" (1).
The Finished Product, the Limited US
Theatrical Release and Fan Reaction
The film was completed
in mid 1986 with a final budget of $8 million (according to
Bob Miller’s 1990 article in Animato! Magazine) or $10 million
(according to the March 1986 issue of Starlog Magazine).
Either figure sounds way too high, as "Transformers the
movie", released in August 1986, which had all new animation,
was budgeted for far less than that amount. "Robotech the
movie" was test marketed in 35 cinemas across the Metroplex
area of Dallas, Texas from 25 July 1986 (5).
According to a 1986 TV interview with Macek, the reasoning
behind using the Dallas Metroplex area as a test market was
because it represented "middle America", and the "Robotech" TV
series had rated quite well there (6).
Depending on who you talk to (or believe) the audience
reactions were vastly different. Some said audiences broke out
into hysterics. Others reported that concerned mothers left
the screenings in disgust with their children, appalled at the
violence in the film. Others said that there wasn't much of a
reaction to the film at all. In the September 1986 Lone Star
Comics newsletter, "The Lone Star Express", Derek Wakefield
wrote a very favourable review in his anime column "Banzai!"
and noted that the film "had several good reviews by
critics" (7). The Fort Worth
Star-Telegram, the only paper in the region to review the
film, gave it a 7 out of 10 score (2).
The film apparently was still in cinemas anywhere from three
to four weeks after release. Despite the fan chatter claiming
the film was considered a box office bomb, this was apparently
not the case. Macek said in a 2010 interview that the film
opened around the same time as two films touted as
blockbusters, James' Cameron's "Aliens" and Roman Polanski's
"Pirates"; "It did exceptionally well at the box office
[...] 'Robotech the movie' beat the hell out of 'Pirates',
and did respectable against James Cameron's 'Aliens', which
was amazing to me. It did really well" (1).
Surprisingly this happened despite the fact that advertising
for the film was pretty poor. TV advertisements seemed to only
play during the very early morning. Newspaper advertisements
seemed to be limited to the Sherman Democrat, who only had
very limited press materials provided by Cannon to create the
ad; a one sheet movie poster and issue 8 of the Robotech
Masters comic book. The resulting ad, which used the comic's
masthead, gave the impression the movie was called "The
Robotech Masters". Embarrassingly, the ad was changed for the
Sunday paper, which now had the movie's title as "Robotech
Masters of the Universe" (2).
There were also problems at the theatres themselves, with the
film only being shown in afternoon matinee slots, which meant
adults and teens only had the weekends to catch screenings of
the film (2). However an adult audience
wasn't what Cannon Films had in mind; "When they got the
demographics back, they realised - it was poised to open in
1,400 theatres a month latter - they got the demographics
back, they realised 95% or more of the audience was adult.
And [Cannon Films] had committed to buy time on every major
kids program [...] they were going to market this thing to
children. And it was reported that children couldn't stand
this movie, there was loud explosions and kids were crying.
It wasn't a cartoon for kids. [...] And so [Cannon Films]
freaked out. They got cold feet and withdrew the film from
distribution so they could figure out how to retool it and
remarket the film" (1). This
couldn't have come at a worse time for the film. Cannon Films
was financially in dire straits after some very bad financial
decisions such as the acquisition of Thorn EMI film group and
a few too many box office bombs. The film was shelved and
never got a nationwide US theatrical release, a television
broadcast or even any kind of home video release. It's
interesting to note however that at two Harmony Gold sponsored
Official Robotech Conventions (one in Anaheim California on
4th and 5th October and the other in Philadelphia on 18th and
19th October 1986) included previews for the film and that
both printed programmes stated the movie was "coming soon to
this area".
The final public screening of the film in the US was at the
Second Los Angeles International Animation Celebration in July
1987 at the 2,000 seat Nuart Theatre. The movie played to a
sell-out crowd (2). This final
screening also saw the birth of Streamline Pictures, the US
company that first brought "Akira" and many other titles to
the US during the 1990’s. Carl Macek attended the film’s
screening along with his long-time friend Jerry Beck, who was
involved in the programming side of the event. Due to very
positive response of the audience, they hatched the idea that
theatrical Japanese animation could be marketed in the US (8).
So
while fan propagated myth that this movie failed due to poor
box office returns has been proven to be untrue, it’s hard not
to agree with most fan’s assessments on the quality of the
film. It’d be interesting to know how it would have fared
(both at the box office and with "Robotech" fans) if given a
wide theatrical release. You could probably count on one hand
those who agree that it was a very good film, but as Hollywood
has demonstrated before quality doesn't always mean success.
There are plenty of hit films which are just appalling as this
one. The film itself has many problems. It is filled full of
plot holes and inconsistencies, and worst of all it fails to
connect into the "Robotech" TV series. The movie takes place
two years before episode 37, "Diana's Story". In that episode,
the Earth has its first encounter with the Robotech masters,
but according to the movie they've already battled with them
and shot down one of their flagships. It's such an incredibly
bad continuity error. The other major problem is E.V.E. If she
was part of the SDF-1's computer, and supposedly a very
important part at that, why wasn't she mentioned before in the
TV series? Colonel B.D. Andrews' off screen abduction by the
Robotech Masters was pretty absurd, and blatant continuity
errors such as Mark's motorbike being destroyed, then seeing
him ride the same bike later in the film are really annoying.
The dialogue is pretty bad and the plot is rather hard to
follow at times, as literally two stories are being told with
two sets of characters that never interact with each other at
all during the film. The jarring look between the styles of
"Megazone 23" and "Southern Cross" makes things worse. Add in
the fact that all of the "Southern Cross" footage in the film
had already been seen in the "Robotech" TV series, portraying
a completely different story and set of events.
But personally I find the film to be quite fun, albeit quite
silly. And let's face it; the other parts in the "Robotech"
franchise aren't exactly masterpieces. The constant changing
of what Protoculture was in the TV series made parts of it
incomprehensible. "Robotech II: The Sentinels", considered by
most "Robotech" fans as part of the official story, is just as
bad and as poorly written as "Robotech the movie" for most of
its length. Interestingly the movie also brought about some of
the first negative fan reactions against Macek. At the
Creation Convention in San Francisco in the summer of 1986,
(which Carl Macek was a guest of), a two page typewritten
pamphlet called "Is Carl Macek the Anti-Christ?" was
distributed by fans (9). The main point
of the pamphlet was a protest against Macek's editing of
"Megazone 23", though the resulting mess of a film was mostly
due to Cannon's interference, and arguably wasn't Macek's
fault.
Overseas Release of the Film and Future
Video Releases
Amazingly
the film managed to have a decent and somewhat quite
successful theatrical run in Argentina. A video release by
Tauro Video followed in 1987. Columbia Pictures, who seemingly
had control of the Cannon catalogue in the UK at the time,
might have been planning to release the film in UK theatres at
one point. The British Board of Film Classification list the
film as being classified in December 1986 and its theatrical
trailer as being classified in May 1987 (10).
It never made it to cinemas, but a VHS release of the film
appeared on UK video shelves via Rank Home Video sometime
during 1987. The film also made it to video in various other
European countries such as Sweden, broadcast on South African
TV in the late 1980's, and was even released on laserdisc in
1991 in the Netherlands and Belgium, still in English, but
with Dutch subtitles. The ending of "Robotech the movie" lived
on as bonus material on later Japanese releases of "Megazone
23", mostly as an extra to an English dubbed "International
Edition" of "Megazone 23 Part II" released in 1987. Harmony
Gold and Intersound helmed production of this obscure English
dub circa late 1986, but Carl Macek did not direct the dub as
rumoured (1). Though for whatever
reason, this English dub version of "Megazone 23 Part II" was
never released outside Japan.
By 2004, ADV Films had acquired all three parts of "Megazone
23" and the original version of "Southern Cross". Material on
the extras discs of their "Robotech" DVD releases suggested
they had access to "Robotech the movie" in its entire uncut
glory. They seem to have all the elements of the film they
needed licensed, so why didn't they release it like just about
every other piece of obscure "Robotech" related material they
put out? On a message board I had read that John Ledford of
ADV Films confirmed in an interview that ADV did have access
to the film, but the company had yet to decide if a release
was financially viable (this was reiterated at a number of ADV
panels at US anime conventions). According to another post on
a "Robotech" message board, someone also asked ADV's Matt
Greenfield about it. His response was that they did discuss
the possibility of releasing the film as an extra on their
"Robotech" releases, but that never eventuated.
One of the probable reasons why it was never released was the
fact that the producer of the ADV "Robotech" DVDs was Carl
Macek himself. In a 1990 interview he said "I don't
consider [the movie] to be a part of the timeline of the
'Robotech' era whatsoever. Really, I'd like everybody to
forget about 'Robotech the movie' altogether [...] I am not
anywhere near impressed with it". Though Macek also said
this about a future release of the film; "It does not
make it impossible for someone else to release 'Robotech the
movie' in the future. I just don't want to be the one to do
it" (5). Prior to 2011, Harmony
Gold’s stance on any future release of the film was rather
telling via this section in the FAQ of the bibliography of
Robotech.com’s Infopedia;
"Q: What's the deal
with the murky low-res cover art for Robotech: The Movie
[comic book series]?
A: The animated feature Robotech: The Untold Story was
rushed to market in 1986 through a limited release from the
now-defunct Cannon Films. Producer Carl Macek was
unsatisfied with the end result and fans had also noted its
inconsistency with the Robotech universe. Harmony Gold
has since elected not to continue the license behind the
joint venture that had created this movie."
The last line in that section in the FAQ was later changed in
2011 to the milder "The license behind the joint venture
in the creation of this movie has since expired. About a
third of this project comprises Southern Cross footage that
has been salvaged for inclusion with The Complete DVD
Collection from A+E Home Video.". In October 2011,
A&E released "Robotech: The Complete Series". This new box
set finally included a version of "Robotech the movie", albeit
with all of the "Megazone 23" footage removed, including the
new ending animation created especially for the film. The
remaining footage, almost entirely from "Southern Cross",
clocks in at 29 minutes. That’s nearly an hour of the film
missing from this version. As a result this version of the
film is pretty much incomprehensible. Over 35 years have
passed since the original theatrical release of the film, and
despite the resurgence in interest of the "Robotech" franchise
over the last decade or so, to this day the film has yet to be
fully re-issued. Harmony Gold seemingly have no interest at
all in releasing the full length film and seemingly neither
does any other video distributor in the US or in any other
country. It’s probably safe to say at this point there is no
chance “Robotech the movie” will see the light of day on any
commercial video format ever again.
References
1. Carl Macek, "Macek Training",
ANN Cast, Anime News Network, 14 January 2010
2. "The Animated Movie Guide" by Jerry Beck, Chicago Review
Press, ISBN: 1-55652-591-5 (Note: Jerry Beck was the man who
formed Streamline Pictures with Macek, so the entry on
“Robotech the movie” in this book is probably the most
accurate account of the film's history published)
3. Marcoss Life Fanzine, Volume 2, Issue 3, May 1986
4. "Plot for the True
Untold Story" [Dead Link] forum
thread, Tom Bateman, Events Coordinator, Harmony Gold,
Robotech.com Forums, 2006
5. "Importing Robotechnology" by Bob Miller, Animato!
Magazine, Spring 1990, issue 20
6. "Point of View" TV Programme, KTVT Channel 11, Dallas, July
1986
7. "Robotech: The
Untold Story" by Peter Walker, Robotech
Research website
8. "Anime: Hollywood's
Invisible Animation Genre" by Jerry Beck,
Animation World Network, 1996
9. Carl Horn, rec.arts.anime, 14 January 1994
10. British Board of Film Classification website
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